Achievement Details

Cloud Nine416 (100)

Survive to wave 20 in Invasion mode on hard

Achievement Guide for Cloud Nine

Achievement won on 13 Feb 16TA Score for this game: 3,276
Posted on 13 February 16 at 08:14, Edited on 13 February 16 at 08:17

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This guide is for people attempting this in solo. That said, the techniques I use may still be just as useful in co-operative. I wouldn't know, I don't have friends.

Also, there is luck involved. The reason for this is that the random modifications you get for each wave can give you horrible ones on the boss waves. If you get a bad combination on wave 20 then unless you had perfect luck up until that point, it is highly likely you won't make it.

CharacterSpaceman. Two reasons I suggest using spaceman, the first is his special ability that freezes (Or slows if applicable) all enemies around him. The other reason is his Cryo Blaster has a mod that causes anything it hits to take more damage from other sources, the prime problem in solo being the bosses.

For the map select Mean Street, and make sure you have set it to Hard.

WeaponsFreeze Ray with the Thin Ice mod (Red). Can't live without this, will deal most of your damage out from a distance. It's secondary ability is awesome as well for grouping the enemies up, then blasting them with your other weapons secondary.Cyro Blaster with the Hypothermic mod (Blue). This weapons secondary fire is basically a really powerful shotgun. Grouped enemies will go down super easy with this. For it's primary fire, because of the mod we selected anything you hit with it will take extra damage from other forces. This is really helpful for the Stalker boss on waves 10 and 20, as it means your structures will be able to assist a lot more in defeating him.

StructuresNitroFreezer with the Ice Age mod (Red). Primarily used to give a little helping hand, and also helpful to prolong the enemies advance if you die. Place them mid-way up the walls, this way they can get both the flying drones and all ground units.Anti-Air Cannon with the Sky Scraper mod (Blue). These will deal with all air units for this game, as well as giving you the much needed firepower for killing the bosses (Specifically the stalkers).Tesla Coil with the Flux Capacitor mod (Blue). Not sure this was really that helpful, but I would build one anyway.Tesla Trooper with the Phosphorescence mod (Blue). Really useful for surviving a couple of later waves.

The basic principle of what you're going to here is kill all ground units yourself, and have a plethora of AA cannons deal with all air enemies. Sounds hard, but with the Spaceman's special ability it is much easier than it sounds. There is still a level of skill and luck involved, however. For the AA cannons, I would place them in a row of three right in the enemies path, then continue the rows of three backwards towards the spaceship. If things go right, you'll have 18 of them set up by wave 20. Standing where you and can place weapons and looking at the enemy spawn, the wall to your right here closest to the spawn is where you will end up placing two NitroFreezers and a Tesla Coil in between them.

Waves 1-5For wave 1, do it all yourself. At the beginning of wave 2, place three AA cannons spanning the road as close to the enemy spawn as possible. Also place a NitroFreezer on the wall to the right of them (It will be aiming almost directly above the AA cannons). From here until wave 5, deal with all ground units yourself. Keep your distance and never risk your life if you don't have to, dying once especially early on will pretty much mean a restart. As soon as your special ability is ready, use it to finish off the wave or just hold onto it until a time that seems like it needs it. Don't be scared to use it! It is infuriating to know that you lost the whole game because you thought you didn't need to use it.

Whenever you have money to at the end of a wave, place another AA cannon. For wave 5 you will face the first boss, although he is relatively easy. Just remember to keep your distance as to not touch him, and make sure you're outside his range when he re-activates his shields or else he'll instantly kill you. By now your little army of AA cannons will also be able to him away once he gets close enough to them, make sure you're hitting him with your Cryo Blaster so that they do more damage.

Waves 6-10From waves six to nine continue to build AA cannons whenever you have funds at the start of a wave, and when you find yourself with over 300 spare use it to build a second NitroFreezer (And eventually later on the Tesla Coil). There isn't much I can really help you with for these waves, as most of this comes from simple practice of keeping the hordes at bay safely. Safely being the key word, as dying is catastrophic. Note that even when using your ability that the rolling enemies will still hit you backwards, wasting precious time.

Once you get rid of the disruptors on wave 8, your AA guns will give you a nice reprieve

On wave 10 you will have to face the Stalker boss. This guy sucks. Not only does he have a bucket load of health, but he also shoots out disruptors as well that will deactivate your AA cannons if you don't get to them fast enough. Using your Cryo Blaster is an effective way of making your AA cannons much more effective, but otherwise whenever you aren't dealing with the distruptors shoot everything you have into him.

Waves 11-20By now you'll be pretty set up and versed on how to continue on to wave 20. Note that waves 14 and 17 are ground only. Because of this, I suggest quickly selling all your AA cannons and replacing them with Tesla Troopers. Then at the end of the wave quickly re-sell the Tesla Troopers and rebuild your AA cannons. If your base is getting a little low on health, you can drop some money into it to prop it up. Just note that every time you do, you will have one less AA cannon for the wave 20. I can't give you a perfect amount of health/tower ratio, as it really depends on the wave modifications you get on wave 20. I healed my tower once, so I had 17 AA cannons on wave 20.

Waves 18 and 19 are quite easy, so they will softly lead you in to wave 20. Here the major luck of the dice roll comes in. If you get the speedy enemies mod, then most chances are you will fail. The heavy weapons mod will actually make it quite easy, and the armoured base mod will help a lot as I can almost guarantee that he will make it that far. Meteors are a added hassle, but they don't make it too much harder. As with wave 10 just try to make sure your Cyro Blasting him so that your AA cannons do as much damage as possible!

As soon as you kill him you will have your achievement!

This guide is open to all suggestions! I personally got the achievement this way, but if someone finds a way to tweak this to make it easier let us know! In total it probably took me 3-4 hours to do this, although a lot of that time was tweaking how I did it to come up with this final approach.

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